Suc­cess­ful re­turn to show for grower

Trevor Of­fer is the king of vegeta­bles, with the Aus­tralind res­i­dent win­ning the over­all veg­etable prize Ge­orge Memo­rial Tro­phy a stag­ger­ing 21 times at the Brunswick Show.

Mr Of­fer’s foray into ex­hibit­ing came from his late father Colin, who was re­spon­si­ble for his in­tro­duc­tion to veg­etable grow­ing, an in­ter­est which has turned into a life-long hobby.

“At first it was just the chal­lenge to try and beat my dad, a bit of a fam­ily ri­valry,” he said.

“He grew ve­g­ies for years when we lived on the farm in Benger, and I’ve just sort of car­ried it on, but I just love gar­den­ing and be­ing out pot­ter­ing around.”

Af­ter a five-year ab­sence from the show, Mr Of­fer made a suc­cess­ful come­back to ex­hibit­ing to clinch his 21st Ge­orge Memo­rial Tro­phy.

“Af­ter not com­pet­ing for five years, I sort of de­cided I would have an­other crack last year and ended up win­ning,” he said.

“It’s just about pre­sen­ta­tion on the ta­ble and con­sis­tency.”

All of the com­pe­ti­tion pro­duce is made avail­able for pur­chase to the gen­eral pub­lic at 5pm on show day with all pro­ceeds be­ing do­nated to St John Am­bu­lance, some­thing Mr Of­fer said usu­ally draws a few more dol­lars out of buy­ers.

“For as long as I can re­mem­ber I’ve been go­ing to the Brunswick Show – it’s the day that stops the re­gion, a bit like the Mel­bourne Cup,” he said.

“It’s just got ev­ery­thing, you don’t have enough time in the day to get around and look at it all.”

Pic­ture: Cal­lum Hunter

Trevor Of­fer likes noth­ing more than pot­ter­ing in his gar­den and grow­ing vegeta­bles.